1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure is directed to a system and method for autonomous discovery of peak channel capacity in a wireless communication network and, more specifically, to techniques for a wireless communication device to independently discover the peak channel capacity of a radio link coupling it to a communication network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless communication networks comprise a radio access network (RAN) and a core network (CN). Although different terminology may be used for different systems, the RAN is generally the portion of a telecommunication network that communicates with wireless communication devices, sometimes referred to as user equipment (UE), mobile station (MS), mobile device or the like. For purposes of the present discussion, the terms RAN, UE, MS, and the like may be used interchangeably with other similar terms describing the same functionality.
While the RAN includes the radio link between a base station and the wireless communication devices, the CN may be implemented in a variety of fashions. The CN may include microwave or other wireless links. It typically also includes fiber optics, hardwire connections and the like.
Downloading a data file from the CN to a wireless communication device is a common activity. The data file may be, by way of example, a multimedia file. Files of this type are often quite large and present the real possibility of causing congestion in the communication network. When a wireless communication device requests a data file, the wireless communication device has little control over the rate at which the data file is transferred. A slow data transfer rate may be the result of a poor radio link between the base station and the wireless communication device. Alternatively, the slow data transfer rate may be result of congestion in the CN or at the RAN. Congestion at the RAN may occur, for example, if the base station is communicating with a large number of devices and response times are slow.
In an effort to avoid congestion of the communication network, a network control element may instruct the data source (e.g., a server) to slow down the data transfer rate to avoid the undesirable congestion. As noted above, the slowed data transfer rate may be a result of a poor radio link or actual network congestion. If the slow data transfer rate is the result of a poor radio link, sending a command to the data source to slow down the transfer rate does not relieve congestion in the network and does not improve over all data throughput. On the other hand, if a slow data transfer rate is the result of network congestion, sending a back-off command to the data source can relieve network congestion. Thus, those skilled in the art will appreciate that it is important to determine the cause of the low data transfer rate. The present invention provides this and other advantages, as will be apparent from the following detailed description and accompanying figures.